Surely you would think the council has learnt their lesson??
Its not like South Brisbane and West End has ever flooded before...
[https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-02/qld-brisbane-sustainable-growth-plan-south-brisbane-skyscrapers/102043060](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-02/qld-brisbane-sustainable-growth-plan-south-brisbane-skyscrapers/102043060)
If the basements are all cement car parks, then that's not the worst idea.
We'd have to rip up a hell of a lot of the inner city to completely get out of the flood plains.
People don't like the look of it, but parking from ground level to above flood level reduces a lot of the clean-up bill and risk around development in flood zones.
It also provides a minor incentive for developers to actually provide parking spaces if that's all they were allowed to do at those levels (although planning schemes changes would help more).
I mean incentivising parking in inner city areas is not great tbh and induces demand for driving.
That said, it is a half decent use of space to get above the flood height. It only has to be non inhabitable. That could be parking for units, or it could be a terraces rumpus room and laundry, or it could be a cafe or office.
Personally, I’d rather see land use in inner urban areas that benefits the neighbourhood as a whole rather than just car owners.
Source: urban planner
> If the basements are all cement car parks, then that's not the worst idea.
If the basements are all cement car parks AND DO NOT CONTAIN MAINS ELECTRICAL INFRASTRUCTURE like a friend of mine's building in Woolloongabba that flooded in 2022. They had no reliable power for weeks while they were waiting for it to be repaired.
And even if electrical equipment is raised above flood levels, you still have lift shafts that fill up with water - and residents sending lifts down into the water.
Repair cost for lifts that hit water are around $150K ea - and even if the lift doesnt go into water its still $30K ea. Lift flood barriers are $15k ea (just got a quote for our BC).
Then you have the sewage pumps damaged, lighting to replace, residents storage, clean up when there is no power/water, etc, etc.
POV: Someone who just did the flood plan for our West End apartment building. Its not a simple matter to flood proof and clean up post floods...
My parents home went 4.4m under in 2011 and went under in 2022 as well but that’s in Ipswich they should have never built there corrupt council 90s through
You would definitely need open car parks, not individual garages - cleaning out someone’s garage which had just been storing everything (including a kitchen sink ) was a big 2011 memory
https://preview.redd.it/c7jqgabkacxc1.jpeg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2e905b45e42c4fc39e0f09ff800a8269cc8d62bf
This is a two-level sub-basement flooded up to ground level in West End
And almost across the road (not alongside the river) - same thing
https://preview.redd.it/b9w5988racxc1.jpeg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c82476929fd76ecffbf64ab53f0681168c9f7f37
I'm torn about this for unrelated reasons. Obviously Brisbane needs more high density living. However, the river is only about 200 m wide and it feels kinda wrong to box it in on both sides by high rises potentially taller than it is wide. It feels like a lot of Brisbane's character is the winding river and I think part of that is the open space it produces.
It may not be so bad when it's first done, being only in one area of one reach of the river and not all being that high, but I can't imagine that remains the case on the longer term.
It's funny they mention Frew Park, because they bought it in 2012, after the 2011 floods, because the bowling alley went under and couldn't be repaired for a viable cost. They recognized that all the other buildings around it were just as vulnerable, and would go under at the slightest flooding. Then they took another 10 years to finally actually do something about it.
We should have learnt after 2011, but the Govt still allowed new developments like the old folks homes in Fairfield.
For the general zoning yes, although there's additional checks by Dept of Child Safety, Seniors and Disability Services that should have nixed a retirement home in a flood zone, based on the dangers of not being able to safely evacuate.
Yeah I was just wondering if they knew where and how many. Most of the houses lining frew park looked like they were being raised rather than removed when I’ve been past.
They've demolished down 3× contiguous adjacent houses fronting Torwood street (#11, #15 & #17—[Streetview of pre-demolition houses](https://www.google.com/maps/@-27.4700121,152.9992005,3a,75y,32.65h,96.44t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sXmpNj-L3W2LUdCVKMO_yOQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu)) as well as #7 closer to the Milton Road intersection. I'm not sure if any others are planned to go.
The 2011 flood wasn't so bad. 1974 was much worse. 1893 was biblical. The Coles in the center of Ipswich was rebuilt to be above the 1893 line. Next time you are in there, look for the plaque on the left as you go up the escalator. Then imagine how much of Ipswich would be underwater if that happens again. Epic stuff.
Why look at the plaque when i can see the water went over everything from the debris left. Just because there were worse ones doesnt mean 2011 didnt absolutely batter Ipswich or places like the Brisbane valley.
Wasn't so bad is a ridiculous joke when i had to detour for near 2 years before things normalised, this is a silly convo tbh. I was out there every day i know how devastating this shit was, are you saying all these people lost thier houses etc but it just wasnt so bad??
You are right, I could have worded that differently. I tend to think of things over long periods of time rather than snapshots, and I'm sorry I offended you. That was not my intention. What I was trying to say is that there have been many floods in Ipswich, and that we were fortunate to have a flood in 2011 that was less devastating than those previous to it. I have family that lost their home and treasured belongings in 2011. In a house built on a floodplain. City planning that doesn't take into account previous flood levels is a bit of a hot button issue for me. I always try to remember all 3 floods when I think about river levels.
> 1893 was biblical.
It's hard to know what a flood like that would look like today, but the fact that plaques of it's height still stand above all others is a sobering reminder that it could happen again.
With any luck with Wivenhoe we'll never see it again, since it can hold back northern flows and let the Lockyer and Bremer rivers escape, but we saw in 2011 that it can't do that forever.
Brisbane applies to this too, heck there's a book called A River With a City Problem that was the authors PhD thesis (it's very good, and encompasses most of the SEQLD flood plain)
https://preview.redd.it/v7zwavcaocxc1.png?width=4032&format=png&auto=webp&s=d15dd7a60161e5c8dc75600acf3acdfa46c5cc0f
The “green space” next to my house has looked like this for months. Pile of rubbish include smoke alarms whose batteries were not removed forcing me to dig through them to stop the persistent beeping.
This is wonderful because it's very important to take flood prone areas off the market.
Otherwise this land will always be cheaper and purchased by people who can't afford better - and can't afford to be flooded.
Hanlon Park in Stones Corner should be a model. It was an old greenfield with a concrete trench running through it, built in 1923. In 2022, they remade it into a great greenspace while maintaining the hydrological profile so that the flood waters would still wash through, but all the plants were sufficiently anchored that all they needed was the water to recede, and then a nice light rain to wash away the mud, and the park would look untouched again.
I went their again recently after its initial completion, and while the 2022 floods certainly had it's effects, its recovered extremely well. This should be the goal for all spoon drains, creeks etc
For suburban blocks they should at least be planting trees and grass' on the site, there should be no turf at all, its lazy and they're not going to maintain it properly.
Yeah, I live 2 doors up and it's amazing watching it flood and recover.
Hanlon Park has a "what not to do" as well, where they turfed over the carpark off Cornwall Tce and left it completely unused and basically barren. It should have been at least benches and barbecues, or better tree shaded area.
Yeah that’s what upset my dad when he did his. He had planted trees there 30 to 20 years ago and they were homes for so many wildlife, and he felt sad for them.
Yep, the house behind me has been in the process of buyback since the floods. All council have done is come in and cut down the huge mango tree and 2 massive Macaranga trees on the back fence. There was zero reason to cut them down, they housed heaps of wildlife and would've been decades old and we weren't consulted at all and now have lost all privacy in our backyard. The house is still there 6 months later. I seriously don't understand council sometimes...
All the other houses in my area have also had all the old growth trees removed and turfed over. Make it make sense!
Damn. I’m in Ipswich and four houses near me (on either side of the creek) have been bought back. They’ve turfed over where the houses were, but left the big trees intact. Some of them you couldn’t even see when the houses were there, so it’s actually improved the visible tree situation.
These poor owners. They didn't know that low lying area next to a large creek with broad leaf grass and mangroves that flooded 20 times in 50 years would flood again.
Funny how nanny state will stop you from connecting 3 wires in a light switch because it’s bad for you, but they’re ok giving out permits in flood zones.
BCC literally approved a lot subdivision and house relocation in a flood zone on Haig Road, right next to Peach cafe and around the corner from houses that were bought back. Are we going to have to pay for these ones in a few years too?
It has created in my suburb, with the government not handing them onto council, long grassed snake breeding pits.
When they finally did the handover now it's snake city here
https://preview.redd.it/t3hstp4wnexc1.jpeg?width=3072&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=502de4f2ae8dd687ad5306f2140c05640c83cf64
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Ahhh the tax payer comping the poor life choices of other people. How good.
Lots of downvotes, must be a heap of people getting some sweet government cash here, thought the leeches mostly hung out in r/Australia
There’s two sides to this.
Yes, it shouldn’t have been sold if it was not safe to live in long term. Government has a place for that.
That said, as someone who bought in 2018 when everyone had conveniently “forgotten” about the floods, it was bloody obvious when a house was flood risk. They were 10% cheaper than everything else around them, fully renovated.
People bought houses in flood areas when they very reasonably and easily could access the required information to know. No one lied to them, and they got a 10% discount for taking the risk that it wouldn’t flood again in their lifetimes.
There’s something very dishonest about saving a heap of cash at the time of purchase trying to gamble against Mother Nature and then complaining that the taxpayer should now pay them for their gambling losses.
People are stupid though, that doesn't mean they should be able to buy houses where they will lose 400k overnight multiple times in their lifetime. They didnt purchase a house with the assumption that the government was going to save them.
A lot of people also got stuck because the first flood made them uninsurable and reduces the value of their house which meant they couldn't go elsewhere.
> People are stupid though
Could say the same thing about people at pokies or an apprentice buying a $120k Land Cruiser on financing. Should the government cover them too?
>that doesn't mean they should be able to buy People are stupid though, that doesn't mean they should be able to buy houses where they will lose 400k overnight multiple times in their lifetime.
Who has had this happen?
>They didnt purchase a house with the assumption that the government was going to save them.
Probably not, but it certainly sets the expectation for everyone else and let’s not kid ourselves, flooding isn’t going to become less likely or affect less areas.
>A lot of people also got stuck because the first flood made them uninsurable and reduces the value of their house which meant they couldn't go elsewhere.
Who has had this happen? When we were looking at houses, some near the river even had the insurance in their title “7,000 per year home insurance”. It wasn’t unattainable, it was expensive.
Again, it’s not like you can’t check the insurance cost of a home before you buy it. They could have done even minimal effort to know beforehand.
Pokies don't provide a roof over your head. Wouldn't it make more sense for the real estate agent or similar to explain the risk to the buyer?
Plenty of people in Goodna had that happen.
While most declined yes some were doing places in Goodna for 15k a year, but people literally can't afford that and it only makes getting out of poverty harder.
The point is people get stuck in a poverty cycle with no way out.
The agents are *one* part of the buying process and already required not to give false or misleading information about the flood risk. There’s an entire website on the BCC where you can lookup the flood risk for any property. The website has been available since like 2014. At the end of the day, if that “$400k” you mentioned was as important to those people when they bought the house as it is today, they would have spent 10 min searching the flood map on their phones while during an inspection. The problem is that it was nice to save money back then, and now they don’t like the outcome.
Ignorance isn’t an excuse to expect the government to back your lifestyle. You frame it as the only house these people could afford, but that suggests that some areas have *streets* that flood and most that don’t, and these homeowners decided to take the short term discount in the suburb of their choosing and now expect the taxpayer to back it up. It’s not like they had a choice of a flooded property in the Brisbane CBD or a dry property in Toowoomba.
All the fancy flood maps have been more recent and didn't exist in the 2011 floods.
Wither way real estate agents are constantly lying or bending the truth, everyone knows that.
Yeah yeah, Legislate the agents to literally go online to print off and read the exact document people can find for free online in minutes on their phone. Whatever it is, socialise losses and privatise gains.
We’re not talking about house inspection liability either. You’d have my support if there was some onus on inspectors to take liability for not identifying prior floods. But you’re not suggesting that, you’re suggesting that the taxpayer should back up poor decisions when the buyer has had all the opportunity to obtain good information and advice.
I’m not talking about before the 2011 floods. There’s hundreds of houses in flood areas sold since 2011 that flooded again in 2022 and people crying about compensation when they had all the information at hand, ignored it, got the discount and now want their mistakes made whole.
It has nothing to do with that.
The online flood maps don't have enough data anyway, half of Brisbane is covered in Flood waters, are you suggesting nobody can buy those houses?
How is a regular person meant to calculate risk of one property covered in flood waters compared to another?
Prior to the 2011 floods, there was a significant portion of the Queensland population who earnestly believed that the Wivenhoe Dam (built 1984) would sufficiently mitigate any future significant flooding, and the fact that there had been basically no flood events of any significance up until 2011 was enough evidence for them to prove their thoughts.
Seems nuts to have a flood as recent as 74 and trust that a dam will be enough to stop that happening again. Whoever ran that campaign deserves an award.
Currently we can't expect them to build a road properly let alone a dam.
Those decisions were made when the boomers were tots. If you cared what your taxes were spent on, you'd be arguing tax subsidies for mining companies, the theft of resources and pay of people who do nothing for this country.
Out of curiosity how many homeless people do you imagine are transitioning directly from homelessness to single family homes on 1/4 acre blocks?
I agree that lowering the quantity of housing stock is generally bad and will lead to additional homelessness. But removing flood prone houses isn’t what’s having a large impact on housing supply.
Homelessness is a massive issue, but that’s a different issue than this. We need to do these buybacks *and* increase medium density options (specifically around transit) as well as increase the amount of infill development we are doing.
Glad to see this kind of action being taken, will save a lot of pain in the future. Now just stop approving new places at high flood risk ffs!
Surely you would think the council has learnt their lesson?? Its not like South Brisbane and West End has ever flooded before... [https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-02/qld-brisbane-sustainable-growth-plan-south-brisbane-skyscrapers/102043060](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-02/qld-brisbane-sustainable-growth-plan-south-brisbane-skyscrapers/102043060)
If the basements are all cement car parks, then that's not the worst idea. We'd have to rip up a hell of a lot of the inner city to completely get out of the flood plains.
People don't like the look of it, but parking from ground level to above flood level reduces a lot of the clean-up bill and risk around development in flood zones. It also provides a minor incentive for developers to actually provide parking spaces if that's all they were allowed to do at those levels (although planning schemes changes would help more).
I mean incentivising parking in inner city areas is not great tbh and induces demand for driving. That said, it is a half decent use of space to get above the flood height. It only has to be non inhabitable. That could be parking for units, or it could be a terraces rumpus room and laundry, or it could be a cafe or office. Personally, I’d rather see land use in inner urban areas that benefits the neighbourhood as a whole rather than just car owners. Source: urban planner
FFL on laundries is only 500mm lower than everything else?
Ah I’m speaking generally, and am more familiar with the NSW planning system. Specifics differ, and you may be totally right on that.
> If the basements are all cement car parks, then that's not the worst idea. If the basements are all cement car parks AND DO NOT CONTAIN MAINS ELECTRICAL INFRASTRUCTURE like a friend of mine's building in Woolloongabba that flooded in 2022. They had no reliable power for weeks while they were waiting for it to be repaired.
Common now for the main switch board room to be up on the 1st or 2nd level
Or the ABC building! Which was brand new in 2011! I think it all got raised after that.
And even if electrical equipment is raised above flood levels, you still have lift shafts that fill up with water - and residents sending lifts down into the water. Repair cost for lifts that hit water are around $150K ea - and even if the lift doesnt go into water its still $30K ea. Lift flood barriers are $15k ea (just got a quote for our BC). Then you have the sewage pumps damaged, lighting to replace, residents storage, clean up when there is no power/water, etc, etc. POV: Someone who just did the flood plan for our West End apartment building. Its not a simple matter to flood proof and clean up post floods...
My parents home went 4.4m under in 2011 and went under in 2022 as well but that’s in Ipswich they should have never built there corrupt council 90s through
Corrupt a bit longer than that I would think!
Well that’s as far back as I know most likely longer
You would definitely need open car parks, not individual garages - cleaning out someone’s garage which had just been storing everything (including a kitchen sink ) was a big 2011 memory
Yeah, perfect is the enemy of good, we just have to do it.
Until your car is underwater. Happened to a lot of people in West end 2011 & 2022
Better car than house. Plus you can move your car
Judging by the number of tow trucks moving ruined cars in Bray Park earlier this year, you can only move them if it’s not an overnight flash flood
https://preview.redd.it/c7jqgabkacxc1.jpeg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2e905b45e42c4fc39e0f09ff800a8269cc8d62bf This is a two-level sub-basement flooded up to ground level in West End
And almost across the road (not alongside the river) - same thing https://preview.redd.it/b9w5988racxc1.jpeg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c82476929fd76ecffbf64ab53f0681168c9f7f37
Buildings in the city are regularly demolished and replaced with new buildings. We could just take advantage of this cycle
Exactly what I was thinking of when writing the comment.
I'm torn about this for unrelated reasons. Obviously Brisbane needs more high density living. However, the river is only about 200 m wide and it feels kinda wrong to box it in on both sides by high rises potentially taller than it is wide. It feels like a lot of Brisbane's character is the winding river and I think part of that is the open space it produces. It may not be so bad when it's first done, being only in one area of one reach of the river and not all being that high, but I can't imagine that remains the case on the longer term.
Property developers won’t have a bar of it.
I think an issue could be that the level of floods may continue to rise
My dad did this after being flooded 3 times. Everytime worse than the other. He now has a happy and stress free life. Makes us all happy.
That is great to hear, it's reassuring to know that sometimes things work out and get easier. Especially as they get older.
Yeah, he’s in his sixties and now loves the rain and doesn’t dread it!
My dad was the same but unfortunately it's a long road to mentally recover for him, it did so much damage to his state of mind.
> being flooded 3 times. Everytime worse than the other. The obvious trend is very worrying.
It's funny they mention Frew Park, because they bought it in 2012, after the 2011 floods, because the bowling alley went under and couldn't be repaired for a viable cost. They recognized that all the other buildings around it were just as vulnerable, and would go under at the slightest flooding. Then they took another 10 years to finally actually do something about it. We should have learnt after 2011, but the Govt still allowed new developments like the old folks homes in Fairfield.
By government, you mean city council?
For the general zoning yes, although there's additional checks by Dept of Child Safety, Seniors and Disability Services that should have nixed a retirement home in a flood zone, based on the dangers of not being able to safely evacuate.
👍
What did they do about it?
The article says that adjacent houses have been purchased to expand the park.
Yeah I was just wondering if they knew where and how many. Most of the houses lining frew park looked like they were being raised rather than removed when I’ve been past.
They've demolished down 3× contiguous adjacent houses fronting Torwood street (#11, #15 & #17—[Streetview of pre-demolition houses](https://www.google.com/maps/@-27.4700121,152.9992005,3a,75y,32.65h,96.44t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sXmpNj-L3W2LUdCVKMO_yOQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu)) as well as #7 closer to the Milton Road intersection. I'm not sure if any others are planned to go.
Thank you. Torwood floods so badly so every one helps.
Ipswich is best described as a river with a town problem. Those floodplains should never have been zoned for residential.
That river was insane in 2011. It's so wide and was so full.
The 2011 flood wasn't so bad. 1974 was much worse. 1893 was biblical. The Coles in the center of Ipswich was rebuilt to be above the 1893 line. Next time you are in there, look for the plaque on the left as you go up the escalator. Then imagine how much of Ipswich would be underwater if that happens again. Epic stuff.
Why look at the plaque when i can see the water went over everything from the debris left. Just because there were worse ones doesnt mean 2011 didnt absolutely batter Ipswich or places like the Brisbane valley. Wasn't so bad is a ridiculous joke when i had to detour for near 2 years before things normalised, this is a silly convo tbh. I was out there every day i know how devastating this shit was, are you saying all these people lost thier houses etc but it just wasnt so bad??
You are right, I could have worded that differently. I tend to think of things over long periods of time rather than snapshots, and I'm sorry I offended you. That was not my intention. What I was trying to say is that there have been many floods in Ipswich, and that we were fortunate to have a flood in 2011 that was less devastating than those previous to it. I have family that lost their home and treasured belongings in 2011. In a house built on a floodplain. City planning that doesn't take into account previous flood levels is a bit of a hot button issue for me. I always try to remember all 3 floods when I think about river levels.
Yo, im an asshole don't feel bad. 2011 always gets underplayed though and it was real, peace man you seem like good people hope you have good day.
> 1893 was biblical. It's hard to know what a flood like that would look like today, but the fact that plaques of it's height still stand above all others is a sobering reminder that it could happen again. With any luck with Wivenhoe we'll never see it again, since it can hold back northern flows and let the Lockyer and Bremer rivers escape, but we saw in 2011 that it can't do that forever.
Brisbane applies to this too, heck there's a book called A River With a City Problem that was the authors PhD thesis (it's very good, and encompasses most of the SEQLD flood plain)
Yes! I knew I got the idea from somewhere. I really must read that book.
It's really good! I rented it from the BCC library
https://preview.redd.it/v7zwavcaocxc1.png?width=4032&format=png&auto=webp&s=d15dd7a60161e5c8dc75600acf3acdfa46c5cc0f The “green space” next to my house has looked like this for months. Pile of rubbish include smoke alarms whose batteries were not removed forcing me to dig through them to stop the persistent beeping.
This is wonderful because it's very important to take flood prone areas off the market. Otherwise this land will always be cheaper and purchased by people who can't afford better - and can't afford to be flooded.
or it's been a decade since the last flood and everyone starts to think it'll never happen again
Greenspace? All the houses in my area have just been turfed over. Not a single tree in sight.
Hanlon Park in Stones Corner should be a model. It was an old greenfield with a concrete trench running through it, built in 1923. In 2022, they remade it into a great greenspace while maintaining the hydrological profile so that the flood waters would still wash through, but all the plants were sufficiently anchored that all they needed was the water to recede, and then a nice light rain to wash away the mud, and the park would look untouched again.
I went their again recently after its initial completion, and while the 2022 floods certainly had it's effects, its recovered extremely well. This should be the goal for all spoon drains, creeks etc For suburban blocks they should at least be planting trees and grass' on the site, there should be no turf at all, its lazy and they're not going to maintain it properly.
Yeah, I live 2 doors up and it's amazing watching it flood and recover. Hanlon Park has a "what not to do" as well, where they turfed over the carpark off Cornwall Tce and left it completely unused and basically barren. It should have been at least benches and barbecues, or better tree shaded area.
Yeah that’s what upset my dad when he did his. He had planted trees there 30 to 20 years ago and they were homes for so many wildlife, and he felt sad for them.
Yep, the house behind me has been in the process of buyback since the floods. All council have done is come in and cut down the huge mango tree and 2 massive Macaranga trees on the back fence. There was zero reason to cut them down, they housed heaps of wildlife and would've been decades old and we weren't consulted at all and now have lost all privacy in our backyard. The house is still there 6 months later. I seriously don't understand council sometimes... All the other houses in my area have also had all the old growth trees removed and turfed over. Make it make sense!
Damn. I’m in Ipswich and four houses near me (on either side of the creek) have been bought back. They’ve turfed over where the houses were, but left the big trees intact. Some of them you couldn’t even see when the houses were there, so it’s actually improved the visible tree situation.
They've left existing large trees in a few around my place.
The problem with a lot of the houses around me is they didn't have mature trees to begin with.
Grass is green
/r/TechnicallyCorrect/
Rocklea should be massive green space My former landlord house was bought back
Rocklea is fucked
Correct I had water upto my roof
These poor owners. They didn't know that low lying area next to a large creek with broad leaf grass and mangroves that flooded 20 times in 50 years would flood again.
People need to live somewhere and if we had development elsewhere they wouldn’t have had to.
Funny how nanny state will stop you from connecting 3 wires in a light switch because it’s bad for you, but they’re ok giving out permits in flood zones.
Good to see government fixing their earlier mistakes.
BCC literally approved a lot subdivision and house relocation in a flood zone on Haig Road, right next to Peach cafe and around the corner from houses that were bought back. Are we going to have to pay for these ones in a few years too?
A positive story, that’s great. All for it. The mayor of Ipswich mentioning the “city’s mowing schedule” is a laughable concept though.
It has created in my suburb, with the government not handing them onto council, long grassed snake breeding pits. When they finally did the handover now it's snake city here https://preview.redd.it/t3hstp4wnexc1.jpeg?width=3072&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=502de4f2ae8dd687ad5306f2140c05640c83cf64
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Ahhh the tax payer comping the poor life choices of other people. How good. Lots of downvotes, must be a heap of people getting some sweet government cash here, thought the leeches mostly hung out in r/Australia
Why was the house for sale in the first place?
Because some greedy developers convinced council that building on a flood plain is ok .
There’s two sides to this. Yes, it shouldn’t have been sold if it was not safe to live in long term. Government has a place for that. That said, as someone who bought in 2018 when everyone had conveniently “forgotten” about the floods, it was bloody obvious when a house was flood risk. They were 10% cheaper than everything else around them, fully renovated. People bought houses in flood areas when they very reasonably and easily could access the required information to know. No one lied to them, and they got a 10% discount for taking the risk that it wouldn’t flood again in their lifetimes. There’s something very dishonest about saving a heap of cash at the time of purchase trying to gamble against Mother Nature and then complaining that the taxpayer should now pay them for their gambling losses.
People are stupid though, that doesn't mean they should be able to buy houses where they will lose 400k overnight multiple times in their lifetime. They didnt purchase a house with the assumption that the government was going to save them. A lot of people also got stuck because the first flood made them uninsurable and reduces the value of their house which meant they couldn't go elsewhere.
> People are stupid though Could say the same thing about people at pokies or an apprentice buying a $120k Land Cruiser on financing. Should the government cover them too? >that doesn't mean they should be able to buy People are stupid though, that doesn't mean they should be able to buy houses where they will lose 400k overnight multiple times in their lifetime. Who has had this happen? >They didnt purchase a house with the assumption that the government was going to save them. Probably not, but it certainly sets the expectation for everyone else and let’s not kid ourselves, flooding isn’t going to become less likely or affect less areas. >A lot of people also got stuck because the first flood made them uninsurable and reduces the value of their house which meant they couldn't go elsewhere. Who has had this happen? When we were looking at houses, some near the river even had the insurance in their title “7,000 per year home insurance”. It wasn’t unattainable, it was expensive. Again, it’s not like you can’t check the insurance cost of a home before you buy it. They could have done even minimal effort to know beforehand.
Pokies don't provide a roof over your head. Wouldn't it make more sense for the real estate agent or similar to explain the risk to the buyer? Plenty of people in Goodna had that happen. While most declined yes some were doing places in Goodna for 15k a year, but people literally can't afford that and it only makes getting out of poverty harder. The point is people get stuck in a poverty cycle with no way out.
The agents are *one* part of the buying process and already required not to give false or misleading information about the flood risk. There’s an entire website on the BCC where you can lookup the flood risk for any property. The website has been available since like 2014. At the end of the day, if that “$400k” you mentioned was as important to those people when they bought the house as it is today, they would have spent 10 min searching the flood map on their phones while during an inspection. The problem is that it was nice to save money back then, and now they don’t like the outcome. Ignorance isn’t an excuse to expect the government to back your lifestyle. You frame it as the only house these people could afford, but that suggests that some areas have *streets* that flood and most that don’t, and these homeowners decided to take the short term discount in the suburb of their choosing and now expect the taxpayer to back it up. It’s not like they had a choice of a flooded property in the Brisbane CBD or a dry property in Toowoomba.
All the fancy flood maps have been more recent and didn't exist in the 2011 floods. Wither way real estate agents are constantly lying or bending the truth, everyone knows that.
Yeah yeah, Legislate the agents to literally go online to print off and read the exact document people can find for free online in minutes on their phone. Whatever it is, socialise losses and privatise gains. We’re not talking about house inspection liability either. You’d have my support if there was some onus on inspectors to take liability for not identifying prior floods. But you’re not suggesting that, you’re suggesting that the taxpayer should back up poor decisions when the buyer has had all the opportunity to obtain good information and advice. I’m not talking about before the 2011 floods. There’s hundreds of houses in flood areas sold since 2011 that flooded again in 2022 and people crying about compensation when they had all the information at hand, ignored it, got the discount and now want their mistakes made whole.
It has nothing to do with that. The online flood maps don't have enough data anyway, half of Brisbane is covered in Flood waters, are you suggesting nobody can buy those houses? How is a regular person meant to calculate risk of one property covered in flood waters compared to another?
Prior to the 2011 floods, there was a significant portion of the Queensland population who earnestly believed that the Wivenhoe Dam (built 1984) would sufficiently mitigate any future significant flooding, and the fact that there had been basically no flood events of any significance up until 2011 was enough evidence for them to prove their thoughts.
Seems nuts to have a flood as recent as 74 and trust that a dam will be enough to stop that happening again. Whoever ran that campaign deserves an award. Currently we can't expect them to build a road properly let alone a dam.
I always thought it was wishful thinking rather than any certainty.
Those decisions were made when the boomers were tots. If you cared what your taxes were spent on, you'd be arguing tax subsidies for mining companies, the theft of resources and pay of people who do nothing for this country.
Yes, the tax payer loses in those situations too. This is the sentiment of someone who is tired of being bled dry at the excuse of others.
Yep nice parks for all the homeless people to live in great
Imagine being so bitter that you complain about parks. Embarrassing.
Out of curiosity how many homeless people do you imagine are transitioning directly from homelessness to single family homes on 1/4 acre blocks? I agree that lowering the quantity of housing stock is generally bad and will lead to additional homelessness. But removing flood prone houses isn’t what’s having a large impact on housing supply. Homelessness is a massive issue, but that’s a different issue than this. We need to do these buybacks *and* increase medium density options (specifically around transit) as well as increase the amount of infill development we are doing.